Ahtna language revitalization gets boost from app

In Alaska Native cultures, “chert” is “a type of stone used to fashion spear points, arrowheads and other tools,” according to Reid and Grant Magdanz, developers of an app that allows users to type in Alaska Native languages.

Chert is also the name of the app, which supports the Ahtna language originally spoken by the Ahtna people in the Matanuska-Susitna valley.

“To us, the word symbolizes connection between the past and present, similar to the way Alaska Native languages connect us to those who came before.”

The app is another tool for language revitalization. The Ahtna language revitalization project based in Chickaloon, called Nay’dini’aa Na’ Kayaz Dahwdoldiix Ce’e, or Chickaloon Village Learning Big Project, includes daily lessons in the Ahtna language at the Ya Ne Dah Ah School in Chickaloon. At the school, children learn basic words and phrases, and the program’s Soundcloud account posts simple lessons online.

Grant Rebne, who is working on a children’s book in Ahtna set to be published soon, said “Reid and Grant did a nice job. It was an idea that Reid spoke about at the 2016 AK Native Language Summit last year.”

Ahtna is an Athabascan language that is considered endangered, with 25 speakers, and is considered a “moribund” language by the Alaska Native Language Center.